Life is Beautiful

I got the chance to go to Church twice while I was in Africa and it was beautiful! It was the most amazing experience and one that I will never forget! That alone was worth my whole trip out here! I loved being in a place that felt like home and getting to worship in the familiar ways I have cherished and loved my whole life. It was a sweet experience to see that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the same-all the way across the world in Africa.

I love these children! They are each beautiful in their own way.. oh goodness..

This is the awesome walk i take to school every day! It's about a 20 minute walk to and from school and hilarious every time with either children yelling "Obruni dance!" or old men wanting your hand in marriage and for you to bring them back to the "Obama State" with you!

Shannon Hunter, Natalie Nordstrom, Meghan Smith
Callie Wilson, Eva Miller, Briana Stevens, Rachel Carter
George Ketchum
This is the gang. Here are the beautiful people I am privileged to be with every day! They teach me so much and I am thankful for each one of them! this is us in Mampong with our Obama biscuits! they say "united biscuits" on the front and actually taste, umm ok.. but not my favorite! I love these kids!

This is the first Ghana meal i had! The famous FUFU. it is pretty raunchy...It is a thick, dough like West African food made by boiling and pounding a starchy vegetable such as yam, plantain, or cassava. The above picture is ground nut soup with Fufu mixed in with it. They usually eat them both together and it honestly tastes like uncooked pancakes/mucus... the texture is horrible..Since we have arrived, the food has gone down hill too, sadly.. hopefully it will pick back up! here at the internet cafe in kufordua there is a cafe connected with AMERICAN FOOD! we are going to try it after we are done here, pray it is good!

FUFU:
Note: Conventional west African fufu is made by boiling such starchy foods as cassava, yam, plantain or rice, then pounding them into a glutinous mass, usually in a giant, wooden mortar and pestle. This adaptation for North Americans may trouble you if you try to stick to minimally processed foods. But it's worth trying at least once with west African groundnut stews.
2 1/2 cups Bisquick 2 1/2 cups instant potato flakes
Bring 6 cups of water to a rapid boil in a large, heavy pot. combine the two ingredients and add to the water.
Stir constantly for 10-15 minutes -- a process that needs two people for best results: one to hold the pot while the other stirs vigorously with a strong implement (such as a thick wooden spoon). The mixture will become very thick and difficult to stir, but unless you are both vigilant and energetic, you'll get a lumpy mess.
When the fufu is ready (or you've stirred to the limits of your endurance!), dump about a cup of the mixture into a wet bowl and shake until it forms itself into a smooth ball. Serve on a large platter alongside a soup or stew.

PICTURES!

This darling boy's name is Christopher. He is very independent and likes to do everything himself. He can walk up stairs perfectly and he gets around great, his legs though are barely mobile. It's heart-pulling to watch him.  he is a joy! he always has a huge smile on his face and i have never seen him cry or get mad. He is an example to me in positivity and optimism. This is my student Samuel. He is a very sweet boy who has a lot of energy. I think he might have anger problems though because, well here's a scary story for you all:
One day I arrived at school so excited to teach. I could feel in my bones it was going to be a good day. I walked in and the room was literally going wild. They were like savages trying to fight for their lives. This little guy ripped a wood plank off a desk and was running around hitting a girl with it while she screamed at the top of her lungs. When I grabbed it from him, luckily without getting hit, he then found a large stick that he was hitting with.. I repeated the steps of taking objects he was beating others with several times- it was the hardest day in Africa. Outside of the classroom though he is attached at my hip and wants to be loved. Poor boy, I love him all the more though.

This is Emmanuel. He is in my P-5 class and the biggest joy in my life. He brings me so much happiness and constantly is making my days brighter. I tutor him every night in math and he is always wanting more and more problems. He has a passion to learn and loves, no wonder-he has the best teacher : )

They love chalk. They love everything that can be done with chalk. They eat it, They play with it, they throw it at each other.. and they put it all over their faces. What a fun toy huh?

They are all so beautiful!

Tender Mercies

So i am kind of short on time so i am going to just type my journal entries over the past couple of days. these have been the hardest of days yet so hopefully you can get a little glimpse of my day to day work.. no sugar coating here. Today in the shower I had an inspiration. I like to call it that anyway.. I don't really know, but i would love to take pictures of the students desks, campus, clothing, supplies, everything here and write Oprah. She loves Africa. I don't know if there is anything she will do for me but it's worth a shot eh? So I'm going to try... When I get home, I will let you all know if anything comes of it! But i just feel strongly that I should, I am an avid watcher so... all those hours should pay off some where ya?
Ok. so here it goes:
So my class ranges from ages 6-20. quite a range for a first grade class wouldn't you think? In America, that would be unacceptable, a 20 year old in 1st grade! Here, I figured they moved half of my class out of kindergarten because they were just getting too old and it would be awkward for kids who are the correct age (5) to be working with 20 year old. However, if a kid was delayed in America he would be worked with 1 on 1 to understand and pass the grade. here they are just moved up and even more lost. they have no 1 on 1 help so they are simply moved grades with out the knowledge and understanding to do so. That is my job as a volunteer. give these children 1 on 1 help to get to the next level because they know their material. it is a big task and I counted the hours.. I have 100 more classroom hours to make the difference.
They are so emotionally unbalanced here at the school. They are deaf, lack high education systems, most have a language barrier with their teachers and misunderstand the majority of what they are told.  Special needs and mental problems are common, they are poor and live in a third world country, and on top of it all- the majority are orphans and haven't seen their parents in years. they are beat from a young age because that is their culture. they run rampant with no one to watch them except they all know, by experience, if they break a rule they will be punished severely. they are lacking a constant authority and adult figure. they need someone making sure they are in class when they need to be because they are not responsible enough themselves- at least my class isn't. yes, i will give them credit for all being in class every morning waiting for me at 8 but i think they are only there because they will get beat if head master happens to see them. The students who want to be there and learn are remarkable, but then you have the students who don't give themselves credit for anything they do and they have no hope inside themselves. My job is to bring them that hope. how? I am working so hard here to try to make each child feel individually important. I show the kids that i care about them and hopefully that is enough for them to want to work harder. its the kids that study on their own time that are going to get anywhere. this dedication comes with age i am sure of it, but if they are unable to communicate at 20, when will they ever be able to...

The teachers, at least mine, pops off the erasers from the pencils to discourage them from erasing. she says that art is art- why try to change what you already have done. it's your own individual thing.

My P-1 teachers: Edith & Comfort

the students are so interesting to me. they won't use a pencil unless it is the one they want and is perfectly sharp and the tip of the lead doesn't wiggle. they won't share either. They are all stubborn, all i do is sharpen pencil after pencil everyday.. as my teacher says quite often "these children are very very troublesome" -Comfort.

Through all of the hardship, suffering, and differences i see here though i know that the Lord is aware of each of these children. He knows them and knows their needs. It is amazing to go day by day and see the tender mercies of the Lord whether big or small. He knows Africa.

Primary 1 class

1. Addo-Gyampoh Samuel: 16........... 12. Abong Doris
2. Agyare Ebenezer: 9............... 13. Agyeiwaa Carine: 6
3. Atiga Yaw: 16................. 14. Larkie Priscilla Adjo: 7
4. Boadu Kofi: 7............... 15. Asor Martha: 20
5. Obeng Justice................... 16. Mansa Efua: 17
6. Odei Prince: 19....................... 17. Annor Rita: 6
7. Okyere Yeboah Samuel: 8...... 18. Mensah Abigail Princess: 8
8. Osei Kwadwo: 17............... 19. Seidu Isha: 9
9. Otoboa Philip: 6.................... 20. Sewor Eyram: 16
10. Waja Eric: 9................ 21. Danyo Thomas: 19
11. Nimo Francis................ 22. Ofori Agnes: 10

Finding Sunshine in African Rain

Teaching: what a joy! Curry-the man who is in charge of everything flew all the way to Ghana to hang out with us for the weekend and give us the biggest pep talk of our lives. it was so moving and inspired me more than he will ever know. he gave us hope. he told me to never doubt myself and instead of looking to change a classroom look at them as individuals. how can i change one kid. how can i make his life better and have success. i have decided to write down in my journal at least one form of success that i produce every  day. i want to change their lives for the better so i am going to remember what specific things i have done. i have a student i think i talked about earlier, Asor (the 20 year old), who i thought had no language but today she told me what Red and Blue were and she spelled them both perfectly. i am the happiest. they are learning, they might not always show it but they are. i have started to work one on one with my students until they all grasp a concept. it is hard because it takes a long time and some students get bored but that is the only way i can know exactly who knows it and who doesn't. i got 3 new students today so i now have a total of 20. it is a challenge every day but one that i want to take on! This weekend we had a get away to Mampong and did a lot of service there. we went to the deaf school there, DemoDeaf, and cleaned their cafeteria floors by sweeping the dirt with reeds and then dumping bucket after bucket on the floor and moving it around with the same reeds until all the water was pushed out the doors. they were so grateful! while i was there i did tactile signing! that means with a deaf and blind girl named Silvia. she impressed me so much and i will never forget that sweet experience. she has an amazing story to tell. she was born hearing and with perfect sight. also while in Mampong we bought a lot of different foods and materials and assembled bags for the students that Signs of Hope sponsors at the school. They were so fun to put together and to think of the joy they will bring those students who have nothing. I love serving here. It is a feeling i can't duplicate or find anywhere else. i love just holding the children's hands while we walk around campus together and see the light in their eyes. I love loving them! I have changed my teaching technique and decided that the students who are above the others are going to help me team teach. i am having them teach the others because once i leave here, they are the teachers. they are the leaders that are going to help the rest be at the place they need to be. today was my first day implicating that and i think it went fairly well. Today they learned about coloring construction and patterns. they learned how to draw the different shapes and how to see which are different and color the different ones, different colors. A lot of the students doubt themselves and don't think they are capable, but they are and they can if they try and are guided. the teaching here is very different than from America and sometimes it is hard for me to teach so they understand so i have been trying to watch how my teacher teaches (she did today for the first time) and try to teach like her style because that is what they are used to and understand. i have decided that i need to go back to the school at night to tutor the students falling behind as well. i only have 2 months and i have 20 individual students that need to pass their exams so i am going to give them all i have for those 2 months and hope that they all can do it! i am so excited to see them progress and see what they can become!

KIBIDEAF

When I first arrived I walked into Asanaba Guest House, my new home for the next 2 months. I dropped my stuff off in my room and this is the beauty I saw:My Bathroom

My Bedroom

These are my classrooms I teach in. The above is my P-5 Class and the bottom is P-1.

The Kitchen with cooks: Doris, Kristeen, & Augustina

The Left is the Kindergarten classrooms and the right is the younger boys dorms

Classrooms P1-P4

Cafeteria

The seamstress as well as P5-P6
There is also another building that looks just like this for the JSS, or middle school. What a beautiful campus-It is surrounded by beautiful green trees with jungle and mountains.

Ghana bound!

I still can't believe i am actually here! i arrived on the morning of September 25th and am amazed every morning when i wake up to the sound of roosters and kids playing and go to bed to the sound of crickets, frogs, monkeys, and fireflies. There are lizards in my bed.. spiders on my wall.. and i am in Africa, loving every detail! This place is just like the story books but better. The women carry 50 pounds or more on their heads and wear beautiful dresses and the men work in the farm all day with huge machetes that could take my life!I have experienced things i can't experience anywhere else and oh how grateful i am to be here! Thank you everyone who helped me on this adventure, it is very appreciated and i am thankful to the end of the earth! Teaching is not like i expected at all. it is tough work! i have a greater appreciation for every teacher i have ever had and will have. They have a lot of work to do and definitely work hard every day planning lessons and trying to think of clever ways to teach. they have so much patience and commitment it blows my mind. The first day i went to class i was overwhelmed beyond belief by the communication barrier. i had signed to these kids a lot when i first arrived and now that i am in a teaching setting, they don't understand a word i say. we are working on it, slowly, day by day. Since they don't understand me they just look at pictures in a book and try to teach themselves. This will not do for their exams though, so i started at the basics, The ABC's. i have about 5 kids in my class that know them fairly well but the others, it goes right over their heads. i have 18 students. I at first wrote on the board, ABC_EFG_ and had one student at a time fill in the blank. we signed the whole row over and over and then went on throughout the rest of the alphabet like this. we do this every day so they remember the order, the letters, and how to write them. they are grasping, which is the greatest feeling in the world! i can't even describe the feeling i get when a child understands and knows a concept! i feel joy all over my body! it is amazing! After the alphabet we went on to colors. I made pictures of objects with that specific color and then had them sign the color, the object and then finger spell the color over and over. today we worked on the colors: red, blue, and yellow. almost all of my students can sign these colors and over half remembered how to spell them. i love that they can recognize these colors in every day life and one of my students went up to another teacher here and told her every color she was wearing, i was so proud! We have been playing lots of games with colors and trying to ingrain them in our minds, it is tough stuff. i have a couple of new students in my class (i teach P1-the class right above kindergarten) and one of my students is 20. she is trying so hard but she doesn't grasp anything i teach her. she knows it for about 1 minute and then poof! gone.. Today i also started teaching them adding and subtracting. I presented it with objects and would add or take away. some understood.. some did not at all. i am working hard, trying not to let my students fight-which they do all the time!! one of my girl students got a pen stabbed in her hand today.. they are difficult to control because all they know is punishment. one of my boys,Philip, sticks his fingers in his eye ball sockets and just screams! he is very bright but hard to handle.. but isn't he darling!I am working with each of them though and my goal by the end of the 2 months is for them all to know the ABC's by memorization and to be able to write short sentences. This is hard work but i know i am supposed to be here. It is a joy every day and i always look forward to the next. It is an adventure daily with a story to tell. The people here live a humble life and i can learn from each one of them. They are remarkable. Thank you thank you for blessing me with this gift of bringing hope to deaf children in Africa! I love you all!